A student and staff partnership model to enable dialogue and enhance teaching and learning

RAISE Annual ConferenceNottingham Trent University 12-13 Sep 2013

Kathrine Jensen & Dr Liz Bennett

Paper overview

1. The ‘Student as Teaching and Learning Consultants’ project

2. What kind of student engagement?3. Student/staff collaboration:

Outcomes4. An innovative model?

Positioning of student engagement

• Students as consumers • Students as producers

(Neary 2010)• Students as change agents

(Dunne and Zandstra 2011:4)

Project Aims

• to promote authentic student engagement in the enhancement of teaching and learning

• to create opportunities for student and staff to engage in reflection and dialogue around teaching and learning approaches.

• offer academic staff a qualified student perspective (at points of need) that goes beyond the typical end of module evaluation response or NSS survey.

Spaces for dialogue

What kind of student

engagement?

Approaches to Student Engagement Perspective on SE

Focus Factors Limitations

Behavioural Student behaviour, effective teaching practice. Institutional practices (support services)

Student participation, satisfaction & achievement

Often measured by surveys, limit of self-reporting. Snap shot

Psychological Internal, individualistic process. Behaviour, cognition and affective dimensions

Student involvement in learning, motivation, effort & sense of belonging

Survey measurement, lack recognition of context/individual interplay

Socio-Cultural

Role of context. Institutional cultures

Student identity, cultural fit and cultural barriers

Focus on disengagement/alienation

Holistic All of the above Student motivation, transactional engagement with teachers & each other, institutional & non-institutional support, and active citizenship

No distinction between antecedents, state of engagement and outcomes

Data from Ella R. Kahu (2013) Framing student engagement in higher education, Studies in Higher Education, 38:5

Figure 1. Conceptual framework of engagement, antecedents and consequences.

Ella R. Kahu (2013) Framing student engagement in higher education, Studies in Higher Education, 38:5

What does student engagement mean to

you?

Different levels of SE

• Micro: engagement in their own learning and that of other students

• Meso: engagement in quality assurance and enhancement processes

• Macro: engagement in strategy development

(Healey, O’Connor and Broadfoot 2010:21-22)

The Partnership ethos

• “Working with the student consultants was a real delight; they were professional and polite throughout. They also provided some really useful feedback in a very objective and non-judgmental way; nowhere near as scary as one might first imagine!”

• “The opportunity to engage a student perspective is refreshing and challenging. I think this is valuable.”

• “It was good to be able to speak in a relaxed and informal way about the delivery of the course.”

Developing perspectives

“I now know that there is the potential out there for learning to be so much more than it is now. Some lecturers get it but I think more can be done to change the learning experience. But I also realise that students still need to be willing or no changes will make a difference.” (Student consultant)

Developing perspectives

“It has made me feel like the university cares about how the students feel about learning. I have found that lecturers are also receptive to feedback and are eager to alter the way they teach in order to improve students’ learning.” (Student consultant)

Student/Staff Relationships

Student Staff

Collaborative space for T&L conversation/reflection

Consultant

Client TeacherLearner

Liminality

• Ambiguity/transitional state• Sense of identity dissolves to

some extent, bringing about disorientation, but also the possibility of new perspectives.

• Turner posits that, if liminality is regarded as a time and place of withdrawal from normal modes of social action,

Concluding thoughts

• We’ve produced a model for SE at meso level;• Staff-student partnership, engagement and

collaboration key features;• With limitations (scope, scale)• With potential too!

More information

• Project webpage: http://bit.ly/Zgc2WB• Contact: k.jensen@hud.ac.uk • Twitter: @kshjensen• Blogposts tagged with HEASTLC:

http://bit.ly/13l205S